Thieves target personal financial data over Easter

Information theft attacks more than quadrupled in the run-up to Easter as cybercriminals targeted financial data, security experts have revealed.

Web security firm ScanSafe said one out of every four security threats targeting its customers in the week before Easter was aimed at stealing financial data, while the 48 hours before the weekend saw attacks rocket upwards by 410%.

The attacks were a “bizarre mix” of new threats combined with a resurgence in the use of older malware, ScanSafe said. Reported incidents involved key logging, screen captures and site monitoring.

“The rapid increase has been dramatic, but also highly unusual in longevity and the mix of malware included,” said ScanSafe chief technology officer John Edwards.

“Despite the fact that some of this code is almost a year old, it’s still coming back to bite those organisations that haven’t implemented appropriate protection the first time around.”

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